Date of birth What are the options to say about date of birth?

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Date of birth

What are the options to say about date of birth?

5 okt. 2019 18:52

In the United States, many systems of records use your date of birth as an important identifier.

When I go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, they always ask me for my date of birth. Date of birth is often abbreviated as "DOB."

Date of birth includes the year. If you know someone's date of birth, you know their age.

When asked, I reply "my date of birth is April 18th, 1949." This is spoken as "April eighteenth, nineteen forty-nine." (That's not my real date of birth!). (I don't share my date of birth online and I don't think anyone should.)

My "birthday" occurs once every year. Birthdays are considered "personal." Only friends and family should ask. If asked, I reply "my birthday is April 18th," spoken as "April eighteenth."

In US English it is normal to use the ordinal forms: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth... nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first ... twenty-ninth, thirtieth, thirty-first. For that reason it's a good idea to learn the ordinal numbers up to 31.

If you don't know the ordinal numbers, you can say "April one" or "December twenty-five." It's not really correct US English but it's easily understood.

Unfortunately (!) in the United States we use the crazy and illogical system "month-day-year." I think the British use day-month-year. <em>This is extremely important when writing a date out in numbers.</em> It is less important when using the name of the month. Even so, in the US it is better to say "April eighteenth" then "the eighteenth of April" or "eighteen April."

Forms like "eighteenth of April" or "fourth of July" sound formal and old-fashioned to us. We sometimes use them with important historical dates.

5 oktober 2019